Chile's secret laws

Long after Pinochet's rule, secret laws remain on the books in Chile.

Another set of secret laws refers to large sums of money the finance ministry was forced to include in the nation’s budget for the armed forces. Others grant millions of dollars in secret deposits for the military, and authorize the treasury to allocate $50 million to cover the cost of weapons purchases and another $100 million for unspecified purposes.

Still others establish tax exemptions beneficial to the military. One authorizes the president (then Pinochet) to funnel huge loans from the central bank to the military. Another two authorize loans (apparently from Austrian sources) for nearly $1.9 billion. The subsequent use of these funds, was, naturally, secret.

And then there is this gem: “The provision of funds … must be carried out secretly; they will be held in secret accounts, their accounting will be secret, and their investment … will be determined by secret supreme decrees … These funds will not be included in the general accounting of the Nation.”

The total number of secret laws and decrees enacted during Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship remains unknown. Some were published in a restricted gazette, to which only a handful of regime officials had access. The printing of that document was supervised by a military officer, who made sure that all traces of the document were destroyed afterwards.

In addition, there are 69 secret laws that were issued in Chile before Pinochet came to power — from 1900 to 1973 — and two more from the late 1990s, when civilian governments were in power. No one knows for sure the content of the two most recent secret laws.

For the most part, the secret laws are now obsolete, according to lawmakers who have read them.

Which raises the question: If they're obsolete, then why, almost 20 years after the end of Pinochet's rule, is there still resistance to declassifying the laws?

“No one has ever really addressed this situation," Silva said. "It’s not easy to break away from this past. This is something that was just left pending, and the laws put away in a safebox and forgotten."

In August 2003, legislators introduced a bill that would declassify the secret decrees and laws enacted between Sept. 11, 1973 and March 10, 1990. A year later, it was approved by the lower house and passed on to the Senate. But it’s been stuck in a Senate commission ever since.

“Something tells me all these old laws will remain secret. Not everyone wants to reveal how the military spent all these fiscal funds. And who knows what other unexpected secrets they may unravel,” Garreton said.